The Black Management Forum (BMF) and the GSB have joined forces in a new Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) project. The two organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding towards establishing a joint venture that will play an important research, teaching and advisory role in the empowerment and transformation arena.

The organisation will tap into the business school's research and academic capability and the BMF's thirty-year track record of established advocacy capability and BEE activism. Nick Segal, director of the GSB, said that the partnership will allow both organisations to contribute more effectively to the transformation of South Africa.

Joe Mwase, BMF regional president, said that the partnership's offering would be multifaceted and would include research and benchmarking, rating, education, consulting and advisory services. It will also contribute to the advancement of economic empowerment across a much broader constituency including rural communities, women, youth, people with disabilities and ordinary working South Africans.

"South Africa still needs to find a consensus on how the successful implementation of black economic empowerment should be defined. It is clear today that the majority of concerned South Africans agree that the country needs to make progress on three fronts; HIV/AIDS, poverty alleviation and black economic empowerment."

The project is at a critical stage of its development but has already received backing from several quarters. Most notably, it has received the exclusive rights to listed financial services company Metropolitan's empowerment barometer - a software tool developed by the financial services company to measure progress in the five critical areas of: ownership and control, employment equity, procurement, skills development and corporate social involvement.

The BMF and the GSB have had a relationship for a number of years, which includes the former's Western Cape office being housed in the School and its chairman being a member of the School's recently formed Transformation Forum.

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